The concept was born out of the need to mitigate and respond to the creeping phenomenon, drought. Unless the precipitation situation is closely monitored, one often does not realize that drought is upon you or is approaching –until the effects are already felt. On the other extreme, many of the indices and indicators used to recognize drought occurrences are also used to determine different severities of above normal precipitation. The CDPMN seeks also to make full use of this information.

The Caribbean Drought and Precipitation Monitoring Network was launched in January 2009 under the Caribbean Water Initiative (CARIWIN). The goal of CARIWIN is to increase the capacity of Caribbean countries to deliver equitable and sustainable Integrated Water resources Management (IWRM). It sets out to achieve this by improving the capacity of the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) to meet water management needs of their member states in a multi-stakeholder environment, in collaboration with regional and national networks, selected national governments and community water users. The mission of CIMH is to build national capacities in meteorology and hydrology. By integrating the IWRM approach into CIMH training and capacity development initiatives, the project will have a significant multiplier effect throughout the Caribbean. CARIWIN, launched in February of 2007, is jointly implemented by the Brace Centre for Water Resources Management of McGill University, CIMH, and the partner countries of Grenada, Guyana and Jamaica. This six-year project is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency.

Drought and the general precipitation status will be monitored on two scales: (i) regional, encompassing the entire Caribbean basin and (ii) national using a number of indices and indicators. Indices such as the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI, Mckee 1993) and Deciles (Gibbs and Maher, 1967) would be indicators of normal or abnormal rainfall. Other indices can provide information on normal or abnormal soil moisture (Palmer Drought Severity index, PDSI, developed by Palmer 1965; and Crop Moisture Index, CMI, developed by Palmer 1968) or status of vegetation (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, NDVI). Other indicators can provide information on stream and river flow, lake and reservoir levels and ground water quantities. Follow the links on the left-hand side of this page for more information on the indicators and drought monitors.

As an addition to these final drought and precipitation status products, short term and seasonal precipitation forecasts will be used to provide a projection of future drought and excessive precipitation in the short and medium terms.

Related publications:

1. Farrell, D. A., A. Trotman & C. Cox [2010]: Drought Early Warning and Risk Reduction: A case Study of the Drought of 2009-2010. GAR11 Contributary Papers; Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2011. ISDR
2. Drought and Precipitation Monitoring for Enhanced Water Resources
   Management in the Caribbean
   Adrian Trotman, Bano Mehdi, Apurva Gollamudi and Catherine Senecal
   Paper presented at the fourth Caribbean Environmental Forum, Grenada, June 23-27, 2008 (full paper)
3. The Caribbean Drought and Precipitation Monitoring Network: the concept and its progress
   Adrian Trotman, Anthony Moore and Shontelle Stoute.
   In: World Meteorological Organization (2009). Climate Sense. UK: Tudor Rose.
4. A Proposed Approach to Monitoring and Assessing Drought in the Caribbean
   A. Trotman, L. Pologne, S. Stoute, B. Mehdi, C. Senecal, A. Gollamudi
   The Second Turkey-Israel Workshop on Drought Monitoring and Mitigation, Turkey, June 16-29, 2008 (full paper)